Last week, the Democratic senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen travelled to the Rafah border crossing in Egypt, the entry point for many of the aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian situation in Gaza, where more than twenty-three thousand people are estimated to have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, is extremely dire, and the number of trucks full of food and medicine and other vital goods is insufficient. As recently as Thursday, the United Nations reported that only a hundred and forty-five trucks entered Gaza through Rafah and Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, which is close to Rafah, but on the Israeli side; human-rights groups have stated that more than three times that many are required. Israel contends that aid trucks have to be closely scrutinized to insure that weapons are not being smuggled into Gaza, but after watching the inspection process at Rafah, Merkley and Van Hollen called the Israeli approach “arbitrary.”
I recently spoke by phone with Senator Van Hollen, of Maryland, who was elected to the position in 2016, after serving seven terms in the House of Representatives. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed his view of the problems with the American-Israeli relationship, why so little aid is reaching Gazans, and whether Israel is concerned with the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
What was the purpose of your trip?
The purpose was twofold. The first was to go to the Rafah border crossing to see firsthand what the humanitarian situation was in Gaza and whether there were steps we could take to improve it. And we found a humanitarian crisis that was bad and getting worse, and we made observations on why that was the case and what we could be doing to improve the situation.
Why is it getting worse?
Well, it’s getting worse in terms of the level of hunger, and that is the result of people who’ve been denied access to the food they need for too long, and are not getting adequate levels of humanitarian supplies, as well as a dramatic reduction—it went down to zero in early December—of commercial trucks going through the crossings, and of course those trucks used to supply goods to the people of Gaza.
You also said that the inspection process was “arbitrary.” What does that mean in practice?
One of the things we witnessed personally was a large warehouse filled with humanitarian goods that had been rejected at Israeli inspection points. Goods like medical kits used to deliver babies, water-testing kits, water filters, solar-powered desalinization units, tents that people said might’ve been returned because they had metal poles.
So a whole collection of rejected items that seemed purely arbitrary. And I will also say that when one item on a truck is rejected, the entire truck is turned back, and in talking to a truck driver and others we learned that some of these trucks take twenty days to go from the starting point to delivering assistance. So when I say, “a whole truck is turned back,” it goes all the way back to the beginning of the process.
Have you talked to Israeli officials about why this process is functioning the way it is?
We intend to take what we learned and talk to Israeli officials, and we are also going to put together a letter to David Satterfield—he’s our envoy who’s coördinating the American humanitarian effort—about all the items that we think need to be improved. I know that he is already working on some of them, but we want to provide him with a comprehensive list.
You said that you thought the situation in terms of hunger is getting worse, but the Biden Administration has put forward the line that essentially things are improving, that they’ve pressured Israel to allow more humanitarian aid in, and that broadly Israel is responding to that pressure and things are getting better. Is that accurate?
My sense was things are not getting better, either in terms of the humanitarian situation in Gaza or a reduction in high levels of civilian casualties. I track the civilian casualties very closely. They’ve actually gone up in the last couple of days, since the Administration has said that the Israelis are reducing their footprint and tempo. It is true that Israel has removed some of the forces it has in northern Gaza because they’ve essentially taken control of that area of Gaza, but they’ve simply concentrated their efforts in the south, and so we’ve seen no real reduction in the high levels of civilian casualties.
In terms of the assistance, you obviously have a crisis situation, and every international organization that we spoke to indicated that they’ve operated worldwide for decades and they’ve never seen a worse crisis. And they said that the deconfliction process in Gaza is totally broken, meaning humanitarian-aid workers are putting their lives at risk every time they go out to distribute goods to people who need them, and that there was this very cumbersome and arbitrary process for getting goods into Gaza. [Deconfliction refers to procedures for reducing the risk of unintended casualties among allies and aid groups; in December, an Israeli strike at the Kerem Shalom crossing forced the World Food Program and other aid groups to suspend operations there.]
Do you think that the bombing campaign needs to stop until the humanitarian situation improves?
Yes, that’s accurate. What I’ve stated is that because the Netanyahu government has shown itself incapable of reducing the high levels of civilian casualties and making sure that we get sufficient humanitarian supplies into Gaza, we need to have a humanitarian timeout, a humanitarian pause.
I saw a statement where you said, “Secretary [Antony] Blinken and President Biden had been right to insist on two things: a reduction in the unacceptable levels of civilian casualties and much more cooperation when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance. We’ve not seen that.” The word that you use there is “insist,” and I’m curious whether the Israelis in your mind perceive us as insisting on anything if essentially full diplomatic support, such as weapons sales without congressional approval, are going to continue regardless of whether they do the things that we’re “insisting” on.
I understand, and my view is that the Biden Administration has not adequately exercised U.S. influence and leverage to achieve our goals. There’s a big difference between stating our objectives and achieving them. And while we’ve seen some minimal improvement in certain areas—for example, Kerem Shalom crossing was finally opened—the reality is that we continue to see Secretary Blinken make these statements, and we continue to see Prime Minister Netanyahu rebuff him and turn his back on major U.S. requests, not just with respect to reducing the number of civilian casualties and getting more humanitarian assistance in but making sure that the Palestinian Authority gets its funds. As you know, the Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich has dramatically cut those back. So you’ve got the spectacle of Secretary Blinken being in Israel saying, “We need to have a real two-state solution to provide some light at the end of this very dark tunnel," and that very day Netanyahu slaps down that idea. They’re saying the right things, but they need a strategy to hold Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition more accountable.
How do you understand this Administration’s policy? Because it seems like this has been going on for somewhat of a long time now—this back-and-forth with the Israeli government—but the weapons sales keep coming. Nothing really seems to change.
I think that President Biden’s strategy was to show the people of Israel that the United States stood firmly with them in the aftermath of the horrific Hamas attacks of October 7th, and I strongly supported the President in doing that. I think the Administration hoped that by providing that warm embrace, the United States would have more influence in terms of how Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition conducted the war. But clearly they’ve not succeeded in having much of an impact. I don’t deny they’ve made some marginal gains on the edges, but the over-all results show that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition are essentially rebuffing the United States on almost every front.
What do you think this suggests or should suggest about the future of the long-term relationship between the United States and Israel, if anything?
Well, I do believe that given this very right-wing government in Israel headed by Netanyahu and including people like Smotrich, the United States has to do much more to uphold our values as part of that relationship. And that means doing a better job of holding this Netanyahu coalition accountable—and future coalitions. There’s been a long history of expanding settlements, expanding outposts, but under this very right-wing coalition, we’ve seen a spike in that, and we’ve also seen a spike in settler violence on the West Bank.
Not that there weren’t very big problems on the West Bank before October 7th. I spoke out about them. I’ve been trying to draw people’s attention to them. But, since October 7th, you’ve seen an even greater rise in settler violence and incidents literally every day. So the bottom line is I think we need to do more to hold this Netanyahu government accountable and take other steps that are necessary.
Last month, you introduced an amendment to a large aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, among other countries, that is currently stalled in Congress. What does it do?
I think we’re up to fourteen or fifteen of us on an amendment that would do three things, and it applies to all the recipients of military assistance in the supplemental bill. In other words, this would apply equally to Ukraine, Israel, or any country in East Asia that receives U.S. military assistance under the supplemental. Whoever gets it would be covered. In my view, these requirements should be extended to all of our military-assistance programs.
First is that the recipient countries have to use U.S. military assistance in accordance with international humanitarian law, and they have to provide us assurances in advance that that will happen. Second, the recipients of U.S. military assistance must coöperate in our efforts to provide humanitarian assistance into areas where U.S. weapons are being used in a conflict. That would apply to Gaza today—it would also apply to Ukraine.
And third are reporting requirements to determine the extent to which the recipient countries comply with those first two obligations and are implementing procedures and mechanisms to dramatically reduce the number of civilian casualties in war.
Have you heard directly or through the grapevine how the Administration feels about this amendment?
The Biden Administration is not requesting any amendments. We are in communication with the Biden Administration about the provisions of our amendment. Whenever Biden Administration officials are on television, they say that it’s already a requirement that countries that receive U.S. military assistance comply with international humanitarian laws. So they really should not have an objection to making that clear as part of this supplemental.
If that’s true, then why the need for an amendment? Are they legally correct?
My understanding is that if you look at a lot of the contracts right now that the United States gets other countries to sign, they have a provision where the recipient country notes international humanitarian law, but they don’t have any provision where the recipient country commits to implementing international humanitarian law. If the Administration’s interpretation of the current practice is accurate, they should have no problem codifying it.
I want to return to your trip to the Rafah border crossing. You’ve laid out what you thought the facts were, but what is your analysis of what is going on? Why was this inspection process like this?
Well, if I look at the totality of issues, it was clear that there was not sufficient will by Israeli authorities to address the scope and severity of the crisis, and you saw that in many different ways. I would just start on some major data points here, which is, it shouldn’t have taken so long to open the Kerem Shalom crossing. And we know that it wasn’t open because of a political decision by the Netanyahu government, that they did not want to see humanitarian goods transiting through Israeli territory to get to Palestinians in Gaza.
How do we know that?
I know that from conversations I’ve had with multiple people in the [Biden] Administration. And, of course, even today we’re trying to get the Erez crossing open. [The Erez crossing connects northern Gaza with Israel.] So those are some of the big data points when it comes to humanitarian assistance, and then there are all these other facts along the way: the fact that you have a broken deconfliction system within Gaza—I think we need a humanitarian timeout, but absent that you could still have a much better deconfliction process that reflects the way they’ve done it in other conflicts around the world—and again, all these obstacles that have been put in the way of getting goods into Gaza, including the arbitrary rejection of things like medical kits and water-testing kits.
Just to provide you a little more detail on that: the international N.G.O.s operating there said that in many cases they had an understanding that these items had been precleared. In other words, that they’d gotten approval from Israeli authorities only to have a separate group at the inspection points turn them around. They’ve not been able to get justifications for why many of these items have been turned around, nor have they been able to get a precleared list of all items that will be accepted.
I don’t know how to interpret what you have said as implying anything other than that Israel doesn’t care about the humanitarian situation there.
Well, all I know is that one of the officials there said on Wednesday there was no food-shortage problem in Gaza. ♦
An earlier version of this article misstated which government officials Van Hollen had spoken with.
